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From the Ancestry Daily News
Michael John Neill  11/24/2003

An 1880 Female Head of Household

At first glance the 1880 census entry for my third-great-grandmother looks
unusual. The wife is enumerated first in the household and all relationships
are given with respect to her. Not unusual for widows to be enumerated as household
heads. The only difference is that her husband is enumerated as the last resident
in the household!

Is It Really Unusual?
In a word, yes. I've seen numerous married couples enumerated in census records
and cannot ever remember seeing the wife listed as the head of the household
when the husband was also included within the same household (If you know of
other situations like this, I'd love to hear about it.) This is very atypical.

And the Genealogist Asks Why?
Good genealogists are like small children in the sense that they are always
asking, "why?" The unusual nature of the family's entry could be a
mistake. The genealogist should be careful of reading too much into just one
entry. The oddness of this entry indicates there might be more here than meets
the eye. And even if I'm wrong and the entry is a fluke, my search for more
information on this family and their background may benefit my research in ways
totally unrelated to the census enumeration. And that is always a good thing.

Culture and money impact families in many ways. The difficulty is in learning
more about a family's cultural background and financial situation. Even if we
locate a great deal of information, certain inferences will be necessary (unless
the family left behind extensive diaries, which did not happen in this case).
We will look at the family's economic situation first. They say, after all,
that money talks.

The Background
Antje (the Anna listed as the 1880 head of household) was married first to Mimke
Habben in Germany in the 1840s. County courthouse records (property, tax, court,
and estate records) provide details about the Habbens' life in the states. Mimke
bought a farm promptly after the family's immigration and paid off the mortgage
within a few years. He died in February of 1877 and that August, Antje married
Hinrich Fecht, a widower from the same village in Germany. After Mimke's death,
Antje was the owner of approximately 200 acres of prime Illinois farmland. Family
legend has it that Hinrich Fecht was not well off financially; searches of land
and property tax records did not reveal any real property owned by Hinrich,
backing up the family story. Testimony in an unrelated court case indicates
that son Johann worked the Habben farm under the "direction of his mother."
This reference included a time span after the mother had married Hinrich Fecht.

The Ethnic Background
In most areas during this time period, a subsequent husband would have exercised
significant control over any real property his wife brought to the marriage.
Local culture and the law typically supported this practice. The difference
in this case is that the Fechts and the Habbens were members of an ethnic group
that viewed land ownership somewhat differently than their non-immigrant neighbors.
And immigrants sometimes act in accord with their homeland culture instead of
the culture of their new surroundings. Two studies were located that briefly
discuss the farming and inheritance practices of the Ostfriesens.

Faye E. Corner's A Study of the Descendants of an East Frisian Group,
and Sonya Salamon's Prairie Patrimony both indicate that the Ostfriesen
immigrant view of real property was that any property brought to a marriage
by a woman was still "hers." Salamon states: "[Ostfriesen] women
keep land inherited in their own names. One husband who forced his wife to sign
over her land [to him] was still critically judged even years later."
(page 125) Property that a woman obtained from "her family" was typically
considered "hers" and was not under the total control of her husband.

Getting back to the Census
Does this completely explain why Antje is listed as the head of the household
in 1880? I'm not certain, but I do know that I have learned something in trying
to figure out this census entry. By searching all local extant records and learning
about the ethnic group from which the family came, I know more about them than
the census entry indicates by itself. And it might help me as I research this
family further.

Corner, Faye E., A Non-mobile, Cooperative Type of Community: A Study of
the Descendants of an East Frisian Group, University of Illinois Studies
in the Social Sciences, Vol. XVI, No. 4, December 1928, pages 15-80.

Learning More about Your Own Ethnic Group
Your immigrant ancestor likely was culturally different from his neighbors.
Even American natives who migrated several hundred miles from their point of
origin might have been culturally different from their neighbors in their adopted
area of residence. Learning more about these ancestors' cultural practices and
beliefs at the best may cause you to overcome stumbling blocks and at the very
least may provide insight into your ancestor's life. There are several ways
one can start learning more about your ancestor's culture and beliefs.

Googling
I started Googling. Ostfriesens are not the only group to have had emigration
and cultural studies published. Family historians with immigrants from virtually
anywhere are likely to find something (either a set of links or a bibliography)
that can help them with people from other areas. I did a few cursory Google
searches for other areas of Europe where I have immigrating ancestors. While
this will limit your results to online sources, it can be a good place to begin.
Some initial searches I conducted at www.google.com
were for the following search terms:

Irish immigration bibliography
women immigrant history

There were numerous references located. I tended to favor ones appearing in
a college or university bibliography, but excellent references can easily be
found outside of academic institutions. A few sample ones follow:

Other Ideas for Locating Material
Consider posting a question to the appropriate regional mailing list at RootsWeb.
Other list members may have suggestions of reading material discussing the cultural
practices of the region. Visiting the links on Cyndi's
List for the appropriate geographical area may provide a link to further
reading material.

Summary
Why is Antje listed as the head of household? There is no way to be one hundred
percent certain, but my attempts to learn caused me to know more about the family
than I expected. In actuality I had double motivation to learn about Antje and
both of her husbands, as I descend from both of them. We'll leave that topic
for another column.

Michael John Neill is the Course I Coordinator at the Genealogical Institute of
Mid America (GIMA) held annually in Springfield, Illinois, and is also on the
faculty of Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois. Michael is the Web columnist
for the FGS FORUM and is on the editorial board of the Illinois State Genealogical
Society Quarterly. He conducts seminars and lectures on a wide variety of
genealogical and computer topics and contributes to several genealogical publications,
including Ancestry Magazine and Genealogical Computing. You can
e-mail him at: mjnrootdig@myfamily.com
or visit his website at: www.rootdig.com/,
but he regrets that he is unable to assist with personal research.

Copyright 2003, MyFamily.com. All rights reserved. Used by the author on
his website with permission.